Sorry folks, gonna be a shortish blog tonight. Monday morning in the Al Asad Troop Medical Clinic was pretty busy today. Stomach pains, hematemesis hematochezia (a.k.a. BRBPR), sprained ankles, cellulitis, two new foreign nationals with rashes, back pain, ingrown toenails, boils, all in a day’s work here in the Brown Zone. We had some more (temporary) personnel stuff this weekend, with one of my friends 1LT Coleman being shipped out to another post to help cover another soldier’s leave. Additionally, SGM Dennis came to visit, and to take part in promotion boards for a number of our soldiers. Although I have previously confessed my lack of enthusiasm for travel within a combat zone, there is a part of me which envies soldiers like the SGM, who has been to nearly every military post in theater. It would be interesting to have seen each base out here. They are all a little different: we have the sandstorms, Baghdad has the mortars, Balad has the continually-burning trash pile. Balad also has a Taco Bell (sounds pretty good right about now), and Speicher has an actual Cinnabon. We have a Subway, but I am two-for-two in getting sick when I go there, so right now, I’m sticking with the DFAC, and my two home-”cooked” staples: Simply Asian bowls, and Hormel chicken salad cracker kits. I love both of those, and in spite of eating the chicken salad stuff about half of my days here thus far, I’m still not sick of it. …and I am literally falling asleep as I write this, so will sign off for now, with my apologies for the lame entry; I’ll get a better one up tomorrow. –Erik

If you have a last name that is not “Rupard,” you probably don’t need to read this, but for the technologically challenged among my vast readership, here is how a blog (short for “weblog”) works.

1) I write.
2) You write.

The longer version: every so often (hour? day? week?) I write something, usually about Iraq, music, the family, or this blog itself. This is called a “post.” So, when you check the rupard.org page, you will occasionally find something new there. You, then, have the opportunity to respond (if you’d like) by clicking the “comments” link at the bottom of each post. Your comments will appear immediately (after you click “submit comment”) and will then be a permanent part of the site.

The sidebar at the right will let you navigate to different areas of the site, and the calendar will enable you to see my post(s) for a certain day. Finally, if you only want to see the Iraq posts and don’t care what my opinion is on the latest Shins album, then just click the Iraq link, and you will be immediately gratified. This is the so-called “interactivity” that all the kids are raving about these days.